Greg: This is PKF Texas, the Entrepreneur’s Playbook. I’m Greg Price, Director of Consulting Solutions and I’m here with Charles Philpott, a CPA and one of our certified fraud examiners at PKF Texas. Charles, welcome back to the Playbook.

Charles: Thank you, Greg.

Greg: Charles, the last time you were here we talked about risks and controls associated with spreadsheets. Can you elaborate on both of those for us today?

Charles: Well when we talk about spreadsheet usage in a company concerns here are these are highly accessible or can be, easily changed, modified such that the concern is whether you have reliable data coming out of them. So from a control standpoint, one wants to control access, they want to assure back-ups, archival is done correctly in a very similar manner that you might do with your regular ERP system. In terms of protecting formulas and things of that nature as well so that again you have reliable outcome.

Greg: So Charles, in your experience, do you think that these control issues can be overcome with some organization and structure in a plan to move forward?

Charles: Certainly. I think you’d start with just looking at the overall structure within a company. Who does have access to these items and what type of documentation is in place. We would go from there. What is a critical spreadsheet. We’d want to talk with a client, understand their situation, what items are they relying on and build in the controls such that they could feel confident going forward that their spreadsheets are serving them just as well as the regular enterprise tools.

Greg: So risk or mediation is definitely possible with some thought processes put behind it.

Charles: Absolutely.

Greg: Charles, thanks for being here today and sharing that insight with us. We’ll have you back again on the Playbook. This has been another Thought Leader Production brought to you by PKF Texas, the Entrepreneur’s Playbook. Tune in next week for another chapter and if you’re looking for more resources pertaining to internal audit, controls or forensic reviews, go to PKFTexas.com/internalaudit.